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Story:Kings of Strife/Part 14
Part Fourteen After a moment spent in shaken silence, Vik stood and started to walk towards Silverius. The mercenary was standing completely still with his odd sword on the floor and his eyes raised to the skies. It looked as if he were searching for something – or praying. “Are you alright?” Vik shivered as he walked towards Silverius. The two Ouroboros agents were already gone, their movements fast enough that Vik didn’t even notice them speeding up once they left his vision. Silverius had stopped in place, and apparently Cidolas – who stood off to the side, both her sword and her sheath in her hands – didn’t find it suitable to chase after the two retreating criminals. Silverius responded a few moments after the question was posed, just as Vik walked close to him. “What the hell happened back there? You completely fucked up the plan.” “Wha…?! I could ask you the same thing!” Vik frowned, all concern for the mercenary quickly evaporating. “You don’t know what that boy said to me… Or what he threatened.” The Nneonian frowned and held his hand over his mouth. The thought of his sister coming to any harm was still enough to revolt and horrify him, even if the threat had momentarily passed. “…So you were betrayed, too.” Silverius reached down and slowly grabbed onto his gunblade. “I know the feeling. It’s not too late, though. We can still get them back.” “Get them back…?” Vik shook his head. “No. There’s nothing I can do for that boy, not anymore. He had me fooled the entire time. He always was my enemy.” “What? So you were fooled by him?” Silverius bit his lip and narrowed his eyes in thought. ‘I wasn’t fooled. What Maria and I had was real. I’m sure of it…’ “In any case,” Vik continued, “I’d be all for going after them, normally, but… We’re completely out of our league. You and Cidolas didn’t land a hit on that woman, and I couldn’t move a muscle against Hasey. I sat there and gave him the Crystal, and you… whatever that woman said was enough to stop even you. We’re outclassed.” Silverius bit his lip. “She can’t stop me. That woman can’t do anything if I kill her first. And I can. I know I can kill her, if it came down to it.” After a moment in thought, the mercenary’s eyes widened and he looked over to Vik. “Wait, what did you say? You gave that boy your Crystal?” “I… I didn’t have a choice…” “Bullshit!” Silverius grabbed onto Vik’s shirt and pulled him close to his face, close enough that Vik could smell the mercenary’s rageful breath as if it were smoke wafting from a dragon’s nostrils. “Those Crystals were Ouroboros’ goals the entire time. I thought you knew that! And to just hand it to them…!” “That’s my line. I never heard you say anything about their goals. All you’ve had to say so far was how much you wanted to kill the Serpent Knights, but you let two of them walk away without so much as a bullet shot at their backs!” Vik couldn’t help but retort with frustration. “I’m not the only one who fucked up here!!” Silverius growled into Vik’s sky blue eyes for another moment before abrasively letting go of the taller man’s shirt and turning his back. The mercenary swiftly returned his sword to his belt and crossed his arms. “Whatever. Neither of them were the man I’m looking for, anyway. When I see him… I absolutely will kill him.” “It must be nice, to be able to kill whoever you need to. It seems that I don’t have that ability just yet…” The mercenary looked back to Vik – and this time, he had lost all of his exterior rage. Now, his eyes were narrowed, and he had a detached look of apathy on his face. “It sounds to me like you’re just weak. What kind of hero are you, anyway?” “I’m weak because I’m not a killer… Sorry, but I don’t know if I can accept that.” Vik frowned and crossed his arms with a furrowed brow. He rubbed on the throbbing scar across his left eyebrow. ‘I may not be a killer, but I can’t stand against those Knights… Not yet. Maybe I am weak, after all…?’ “No,” a familiar female voice chimed in. “Neither of you are weak. You are both Heroes chosen by the Crystals. The choice of such power cannot be wrong. We have complete faith in you both.” Cidolas Teftah walked towards Silverius and Vik, sheathing her sword as she did so. “Come. We should leave this area, before we are confronted with authorities. There is no point in needless killing.” The two couldn’t find anything wrong with her logic, and so they followed her out of the park, in the same direction that their enemies had gone mere minutes ago. Before long the three of them had left the park behind entirely and were wandering through the streets of Straits City. There was little in the way of monumental structures in the relatively small city, but they found themselves occupied by the concrete colors of both the streets and the buildings around them. No one spoke for a while until Silverius opened his mouth, apparently after dwelling on Cidolas’ words for a time. “Complete faith, even though we both failed you multiple times?” Silverius shook his head and shrugged. “You’re both idiots.” Vik ignored Silverius’ taunts, and bit his lip. He, too, had been in thought. “Cidolas. I need to become stronger.” Both the mercenary and the blond woman looked to Vik, and both were momentarily startled to see a strong look of fiery conviction in the bulky man’s face. He held both of his hands in tight fists, and his brow was drawn taunt with his bold expression. Cidolas in particular looked right at Vik’s face, her own soft and cold countenance framed by her short blond hair. “We don’t have enough time to train your body, and you cannot advance magically without a Crystal to augment your abilities. Especially without your chosen Crystal. If anything, now you are nothing more than a normal human.” “Even so…! I can’t let those people do whatever they want with this world! Not when I still have people to protect and avenge!” His fists started to quiver. “That’s the entire point of your fight, right? To save people! That’s why we’re working together!” “…Incorrect. It isn’t for such a selfish reason that we resist the Serpent Society. It is for the human race as a whole that we protect the planet, and for the natural order of the world. We seek only an outcome that ends naturally and preserves natural life.” “A selfish reason…? Saving people I care about isn’t being selfish! If anything, it’s the opposite!” Vik looked at Cidolas, and found it disturbing how she could say such things with a completely cold and emotionless face. Though her body was slim and her hair was cut clumsily short, she was actually quite attractive and alluring. Rather, she could be, if there was an ounce of life in her eyes. “I’m beginning to understand where she’s coming from,” Silverius chimed in quietly. “You want to avenge some people, and I want to bring Maria back. If you think about it, all of us are selfish in our own ways. I guess… that’s what makes us human.” He looked over to Cidolas. “I wonder what reason that other Hero could have for fighting. Or rather, I wonder what reason you could have that apparently isn’t very human.” Cidolas shifted her gaze from Vik to Silverius. “A reason for fighting… we forgot such a thing a long time ago. We have only our reason for existing – and it is to protect the chosen Heroes and the destiny that the Crystals of the elements have decided on. That is all there is.” Vik’s fists opened slightly as his expression brightened. “Wait… That’s it! The third Hero! If we find her, our fighting strength will be even stronger, right? That’s our best bet if we want to be more of a threat to Ouroboros. Isn’t it?” Cidolas looked off into the metropolis around them, her expression vacant and distracted. “That is not our ideal situation, now that you have lost your Crystal. With yours in their hands, the Society is one step closer to their goal, but this isn’t all of the seven… There is something we are still missing.” For the first time, Cidolas appeared troubled and unsure of herself. Such an expression was new to both Silverius and Vik, and the two of them couldn’t help but be taken aback by their usually infalliable comrade’s hesitance. For the mercenary, in particular, the actions of the Crystal’s guardian were particularly thought-provoking. “What exactly is it that the Society is planning? I’m starting to get irritated by all this vagueness. How can you expect me to risk my life for a cause I don’t even know anything about?” The blond woman cut her eyes at Silverius and crossed her arms over her small chest. “Have we not told you enough? Their goals involve the premature deaths of millions, and the irreversible scarring of the earth. Is that not enough to persuade you to fight?” She looked over the mercenary, and though her words might have been angered, her face never once faded from its usual stone-cold façade. “What destiny could you ever even pursue besides warfare?” Silverius stopped walking. “Don’t you ever presume to know about my destiny,” he growled. “You’re just like him… You don’t know anything about my future! I swore to Maria that I would never kill again, and I intend to keep my promise! I just want peace for her and I!” “You swore to never kill, yet you wish to kill all of the Serpent Knights.” Cidolas and Vik both stopped walking in response to Silverius’ outburst, but only Cidolas replied to him as Vik looked at them both with concern. “There is nothing to be ashamed of when it comes to one’s reason for living, especially when it is done in the pursuit of justice and peace. You are a chosen Hero of the Crystals. Embrace it – the title is rare, like royalty.” “I… I can’t make good on my promise until I save her. I’m not a hero, not yet. None of my promises or actions mean anything unless she’s there with me!” “It is hubris to believe you can save her from a choice she made on her own.” Cidolas spoke with as much steel as her blade, and her words cut right to Silverius’ heart like one. “There is something you must know about your lover… and the oath you’ve made to yourself.” “Shut up! I don’t want to hear it!” The mercenary held both of his hands over his forehead. “I was mistaken to actually think you were strong. I actually started to trust you in that last battle with my back, because I knew you were strong enough to keep it safe. Don’t make me forsake you, too! Everyone so far… I’ve killed everyone so far!” The mercenary lowered his hands and let his fierce gaze wash over the short blond in front of him. “I’ll kill you too, if I have to. Don’t tell me what I can’t do!” For an instant, Cidolas appeared hurt. Her moment of vulnerability took Silverius by surprise, and he faltered backwards. His resolute look of bloodlust shattered instantly. Vik took this moment to raise his hands in concern. “Hey now, maybe we should all calm down. We’ll never be able to take down such a huge enemy if we can’t stick together in times of desperation… We’re a team, like it or not.” Silverius glanced over to Vik – and pointed his gunblade to the Nneonian in an instant. Before Vik could move a muscle, the mercenary pulled the trigger to his sword and the blinding flash of muzzle fire lit the street that all three of them were standing on. A body fell to the floor, killed by Silverius’ bullet. Vik looked behind himself. There, laying spread-eagle right behind him, was a figure in a nondescript outfit, eyes staring straight up into the sky. A gaping bullet hole lay right in the middle of their forehead, which must have been only a few centimeters off to the side of Vik’s own face. The corpse was enough to shock Vik into horror more intense than what he had felt even from being shot at. First of all – the dead person appeared to have already been dead before Silverius shot them. Their clothes were torn rags and their skin was pale and pallid, as if derived of blood for some time. Their limbs were carelessly spread upon death, but all of them were not bent at all, like their body had been rigid before death. Even their lips were blue and chapped. Second, and perhaps most startling – their eyes were burning with a familiar golden hue, despite their being no life in their body. “A corpse… Why is this so familiar to me?” Silverius walked towards the body with his gunblade lowered and lightly pushed Vik aside. “I need to see it. I need to see…” Cidolas looked the body over and narrowed her eyes. “This was a reanimated puppet. Just like the ones I fought off to retrieve your Crystal. In other words, this was a thrall of the same Serpent Knight that aided in the absconding of your lover.” Though these words would have filled Silverius with excited adrenaline, he barely heard them. Before Cidolas spoke, he was looking down at the cadaver. The moment he made eye contact with the puppet corpse, Silverius involuntarily froze and heard a familiar voice drift by his ears. At the exact same time, he saw a familiar pair of soft red eyes staring at him from the back of his mind, as if they were remnants of a fading dream. “I left mine in the desert… but you must go south, to the darkness, to finish things.” Silverius awoke from his pseudo-dream with a heavy feeling on his mind, as if he woken from a months-long coma. All around him, the day had turned to twilight, and darkness was clearly fast on the horizon. Had he been trapped in that dream-like fantasy for that long, or was this another part of it? “You’re alright! Sheesh, don’t worry us like that!” The mercenary blinked and looked groggily at Vik, who had both his hands on Silverius’ shoulders. “I shook you like crazy, but you just stood there staring at that creepy dead guy for hours! We were seriously worried! What happened?” Silverius looked back down to the corpse, only to see the golden glow fade from its eyes quickly. “A… a message? It was Maria… I know it was.” “A message? Your lover spoke to you… through that puppet?” Cidolas was standing close to the two men, with her sheathed sword pointing to the corpse as if to attack it if it started to move. “To do so would imply cooperation with the Serpent Knight who controls these corpses. That means…” “I said I don’t want to hear it.” Silverius looked down at Cidolas with a hardened countenance. “I think you’ll both want to hear what she said, though. I left mine in the desert… but you must go south, to the darkness, to finish things. That’s what I heard, and I know it was her voice.” Her voice and her eyes echoed through Silverius’ mind, renewing his memories of her and his determination to save her from the clutches of the Serpent Society. “It’s some kind of riddle, huh…? What kind of girl was this lover of yours?” Vik frowned and scratched his chin. Cidolas’ eyes widened. “It can’t be…” Silverius nodded. “Yeah, I’m beginning to think so, too. With timing like this… There’s no way she couldn’t mean her Crystal.” He looked to Vik. “She must have left a Crystal in the desert somehow. That’s the only thing that makes sense.” “Desert…?” Vik frowned and scratched his unkempt curly hair. The only desert he could think of was the massive Mirage Desert in the middle of Inusia, but that had been uncharted for millennia. Surely no one could have hidden something in such a substantial area and kept track of it? “You don’t mean the Mirage Desert, do you? If so, that thing is as good as gone.” “And you’re as good as useless without a Crystal. Cidolas said so. It doesn’t sound like we have much of a choice here.” “We, huh? So you’d be coming with me?” “No, of course not. I have to go south and finish things with that puppetmaster Serpent Knight. It’s what she meant – to finish things and bring her back. I’m sure of it.” “Huh? How do you know what darkness she’s speaking of?” “At the southernmost point of Inusia, there’s a fortress called the Black Pass. It used to guard the only land route into the country of Shimura, and its surrounded by a mist that people once called the Black Darkness. It makes sense, doesn’t it?” Vik raised his eyebrows and rubbed his throbbing scar. ‘So this is an Inusian mercenary… He sure knows his geography. I guess that’s necessary, though…?’ The Nneonian shrugged. “I guess you’re right… but what about the other Serpent Knights? And what about the third Hero?” Cidolas walked up to the both of them and slightly unsheathed her sword. “He’s absolutely right. That is the exact action we must take – and we must move immediately. The third Hero is in danger.” ...End of Part Fourteen. <- Previous Page | Main Page | Next Page ->